USD Men's Basketball 1990-1991

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QUTLOOK

1990-1991 TORERO OUTLOOK

Recent history indicates that the team with the most experience normally wins the West Coast Conference men's basketball title. Look at Loyola Marymount last season, St. Mary's in '88-89, LMU in '87-88 and USD in '86-87. All were veteran-rich teams and all went on to dominate the conference. Guess What? The Toreros of 1990-91 are by far the most experienced club in the WCC. Consider: There are only 19 seniors in the entire conference, and 6 of them are Toreros. The next closest-Portland and USF– have just 4 seniors each . St. Mary's and Santa Clara do not have any. Pepperdine has 1 and Gonzaga and LMU 2 each. Of the juniors, Santa Clara leads with 7, followed by USD and St. Mary's with 6 each. LMU, Pepperdine and Gonzaga have 5 each, USF 4 and Portland 2. In case you weren't keeping track, that's 12 upperclassmen for USD, or four more than USF, the second most ex– perienced team. That, in part, is why many feel USD is the team to beat in the wee. But there is certainly much more to winning cham– pionships than having old players. It also takes talent. And USD has that, too. Ten of those 12 upperclassmen return from a team that last season fin ished third in the wee at 9-5. The overall record was 16-12, representing eight more victories than the 1988-89 team that finished 8-20, 2-12 in the conference. Eight of the 10 returning upperclassmen started games last season. Four aver– aged 8.3 ppg or better for the Toreros, who set a school record by averaging 79.1 ppg. Add to that nucleus two junior trans– fers from Mesa CC (Ariz.), the No. 1-ranked team in the nation last season , and the Toreros appear even stronger. ''This year we're a little bit better because we're more experienced, and we have some depth ," said Coach Hank Egan , who in his 20th season (7th at USD) is the second most experienced coach in the WCC behind Santa Clara's Carroll Williams (21st year). Barring a complete collapse-unlikely with this bunch-Egan will record his 250th career win sometime this season . Egan enters the year with 242. What's more, Egan has added long– time friend Jack Avina as a part-time

his troops for a meeting on Christmas night. He told them, as a present to them, he was going to ease off, quit pushing for answers and just let things happen as they happen. It was a risky move and slightly out-of– character for Egan , and even the players expressed skepticism. But Egan held true to his word . He was verbally less demanding , appeared less tense and even acted jovial at times on the sidelines. Suddenly, the victories began piling up. USD won its next three games and later seven in a row. It finished the regular season winning 12 of 17. Then came the wee Tournament at LMU 's Gersten Pavilion, a tournament few will ever forget. USD had defeated USF (80-74) in a first-round game and was at the team's hotel preparing to face Pepperdine in a semifinal when LMU center Hank Gathers collapsed on the floor during the Lions' semifinal against Portland. He died of heart failure a few hours later at a nearby hospital. The tournament was cancelled . USD, Pepperdine and Portland- all playing their best basketball of the year– suddenly found their seasons over, mak– ing them and Nevada Las Vegas (the NCAA champion) the only schools in the nation whose seasons ended with a tournament victory. It was a tragic ending , but one USD players understood and soon realized to accept. For seniors Craig Cottrell and John Jerome, their careers had ended. " It was tough for us to swallow," Cottrell said. " But we understood." USD will surely miss the scoring and leadership of Jerome and Cottrell. Without them, USD loses 28.5 points and 11.2 rebounds per game. Jerome, an AII– WCC first team selection , set single season school records for points (540) and scoring average (19.3). Cottrell set a school record for career field goal percentage (.5803). Attrition , though , doesn't concern Egan this year. Instead, he feels USD will be improved defensively. "I always felt last year we had to outscore people, because we weren't go– ing to stop anybody," Egan said. This year should be different, Egan added. "Competition at some positions is pretty close. We're not going to have to live with people that don't play defense."

assistant coach this season . Avina, who was the head coach at Portland for 17 years and is the 10th winningest coach in WCC history, joins part-time assistant Gus Magee (21 years) and full-time assistants Randy Bennett (four) and Todd Lee (two) on the Toreros' bench. Avina actually began helping out as a volunteer last season , and he was the one that convinced Egan to modify his approach after the team's 3-7 start. Egan was naturally upset with the poor beginning. He felt the team was better, but couldn't figure out why it wasn't win– ning. The low-point came after con– secutive home losses to Eastern Washington (79-64) and Nevada-Reno (88-69). Then came December 25. After a few days off, Egan assembled